Page 43 of Hush, Little Baby

I scream.

I don’t even mean to. I don’t even think. The sound tears out of me before I know it is coming, high and raw and animal, and then there is a huge man in front of me and another one moving in from the side, both of them too big, too close, dressed in black, eyes hard, hands on me.

One says something I don’t understand. “Gamóto. Poú pas? Den févgis.” Damn. Where are you going? You’re not leaving.

I don’t even register that they aren’t speaking English.

“No!” I shriek, or try to, but a meaty hand slams over my mouth before the whole word gets out.

“Skatá. Piás’ tou ta pódia, aderfé. Íne thiríо,” one of the men grunts. Shit. Grab his legs, brother. He’s a wild one.

My back hits a chest. An arm locks around my middle. My slippers skid uselessly on the hallway floor as I kick, twist, and claw at the hand over my mouth. The door is open behind me, the suite dark and gaping, and all I can think is that they have guns.

I see one on the first man’s hip. And there’s another under the second man’s jacket. My mind does something awful with that. It turns the next few seconds into flashes. Metal. Hands. More angry-sounding words. My own breath trapped hot against a stranger’s palm. My robe slipping. My hoodie riding up. My feet kicking.

They’re going to kill me.

They’re going to kill me because I tried to leave.

They’re going to shoot me in this hallway, or drag me somewhere else, or hand me back to Nikolaus so he can do it, because maybe this is what happens when you disobey men like him. Maybe all the softness was just the part before. The bath. The grapes. The way he said to sleep well. Maybe that was the nice ending, and I ruined it.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe around the hand.

I try to bite, but the angle is wrong. My teeth scrape skin, and the man curses in that language again, tightening his grip until my jaw aches.

“Kolópaido,” he snarls. “Tóra. Piás’ tou ta pódia, prin spásei típota páno tou.” Little shit. Now. Grab his legs before he breaks something on himself.

My scream turns into a muffled, panicked hum.

The second man catches my legs when I kick too hard, and then I’m off the ground.

No.

No no no no no.

I thrash so violently that the robe comes loose. The belt slips, the front gaping open and exposing my bare belly and dick, and the shame hits a half-second behind the terror, useless and humiliating and just too much. I try to curl in on myself, but I can’t. Their hands are everywhere, not like Nikolaus’s careful hands, not warning me first, not telling me what they’re doing. Just grabbing and hurting.

“Stamáta na kouniésai, Christé mou.” Stop moving around, Christ.

With painful grips on my calves and upper body, they carry me back inside the suite. One of them kicks the door closed.

I don’t know. I can’t focus. The world has narrowed to the hand over my mouth and the arms around my body and the certainty that my chest is going to collapse because I cannot get enough air.

I make another sound.

Small this time.

Horrible.

A broken animal sound.

Then the bedroom door slams open, and Nikolaus storms out looking like he’s about to burn the world down.

He is mostly naked, wearing only those loose sleep pants hanging low on his hips, his chest bare and massive and heaving in the low light. The bathroom glow catches on all that thick, dark hair across his chest and stomach, on the heavy muscle beneath, on scars I can see more clearly now. He looks bigger like this than he did in his suit. Less polished. Like the expensive clothes were only ever a disguise for the brutal thing underneath.

His face is terrifying.